A Suggestion for How the Developers could make Hybrid Builds more Viable

dodgehopper_ESO · March 2016

This idea has been bouncing around in my head a long time but I'm fairly certain I've never posted it. I believe that one way Hybrid builds could be made more interesting is for the developers to build some skills in the class lines to be a mixture of Stamina and Magicka damage all rolled into one. This would also have the added bonus of making the choice to go full magic, full stamina or hybrid a lot more feasible. The best way for me to explain this is by example. Certain skills are blatantly magicka based and as such should remain this way. Skills like Sun Shield, Rune Focus, Cloak, and so forth have a clearly one-sided focus on magicka and should likely remain so. Where I suggest a change is in skills like Cloaked Blade, Sap Essence, Jabs/Sweeps, Fire Whip, Flame Breath and so forth. Sorcerer would frankly need a skill morph that would allow for splitting damage (other than the possibility of something like Thundering presence). These skills would have their damage output designed such that it would scale certain secondary effects based on stam or magicka, as well as damage being divided into two portions (magic and stamina). Lets take cloaked blade for instance. You summon a magical blade (Magic) then wield it adeptly to stab/slash a target (Stamina). The action is obviously dual in function even if not in result. Now for the sake of argument lets say that the base physical damage is 500 physical + 500 magicka. If a player puts points in Stamina and Magic evenly, perhaps that damage then raises to 800/800. Lets say they put all points in magicka the damage output would be 500/1100. Bonus weapon and spell damage could also modify these numbers. In order to make things more interesting they could then cause these skills to draw from 2 resources instead of one, pulling more from one or the other depending on the potentcy of effects. I realize this is a significant change, but it could offer a means to a good end. What do you guys think?

AfkNinja · March 2016

I am down for anything that creates a realistic possibility of being a Hybrid. It really makes me upset that currently you put everything into stamina or everything into mana. Health needs to be a viable state, hybrids need to exist imo for true build variety.

Your idea is an intriguing one for sure. If they could balance it so putting your points into any resource results in the same dmg I think I would be jumping for joy.

m0riarty23 · March 2016

you could even fix this without making entire new class abilities, with some sort of armor set(s) that give some crazy bonuses to builds that have balanced STAM/MAG. Maybe the closer the two stats are the bigger the bonus.

dday3six · March 2016

It still maintain that hybrids are simply "I want the best of both worlds with no sacrifices".

dodgehopper_ESO · March 2016

dday3six wrote: »

It still maintain that hybrids are simply "I want the best of both worlds with no sacrifices".

I don't see how. Everyone uses stamina and magicka. The problem with the design of the system right now is that it has essentially two builds: Stamina or Magicka. Even Tanks perform better focusing one or the other, where a Tank should really be a lot more about HEALTH. I agree with what @AfkNinja said regarding that matter. My suggestion would hopefully create the same result and would also make more logical sense. When I look at a Templar doing jabs it is clearly a physical act, there is no two ways about it. If the skill had two components the end result would be similar but not equal. In other words if someone had more spell resistance than physical resistance, and I had a Jabs skill that was weighted more heavily toward physical damage, it would do noticeably more damage than someone who was built for spell damage.

This brings up another issue I have with the design of the game. I think it is pretty bad that the attributes themselves contribute to damage as well as sustainability. I would much rather see a system that forced players to make a choice between the two. It would be much easier for the developers to do this if they decoupled damage from the Magicka/Stamina attributes altogether, and that would really be a preferred option for me.

Valen_Byte · March 2016

Hybrids went out the door when they made everything scale to your mag/stam pools. There was much more diversity before they made that change. The pool scaling makes it so you have to max one or the other. Imo, it sucks. Would love to be able to go back to the days when your skills just scaled off your weapon or spell damage.

CyrusArya · March 2016

Nah, I'm personally a fan of the build specialization system. You shouldn't be able to have the best of both worlds. If hybrids were truly competetive with pure builds, there would be no reason not to play one. A trade off has to be made, and that trade off is damage. If you had suggested adding a third morph or even dedicated skill for hybrids, that's one thing. Fundamentally changing the game for everyone to cater to hybrids is too much. I just don't think the demand is there for such a massive change. I'm also firmly opposed to divorcing damage from attributes. You think your suggestion would help build variety, but in fact they would kill it.

If hybrids are to ever come back, their strength should be in utility and sustainability. They should never do close to equal damage as pure builds.

dodgehopper_ESO · March 2016

CyrusArya wrote: »

Nah, I'm personally a fan of the build specialization system. You shouldn't be able to have the best of both worlds. If hybrids were truly competetive with pure builds, there would be no reason not to play one. A trade off has to be made, and that trade off is damage. If you had suggested adding a third morph or even dedicated skill for hybrids, that's one thing. Fundamentally changing the game for everyone to cater to hybrids is too much. I just don't think the demand is there for such a massive change. I'm also firmly opposed to divorcing damage from attributes. You think your suggestion would help build variety, but in fact they would kill it.

If hybrids are to ever come back, their strength should be in utility and sustainability. They should never do close to equal damage as pure builds.

They wouldn't if you think about the suggestion I proposed. There are no obvious undaunted or mages guild hybrids (argument could be made for some fighters guild skills). There's definitely no Hybrid Weapon Skills. There's no hybrid Soul skills. What I'm suggesting would simply change the way a lot of skills work that are obviously hybrid by action. Again, think about Biting Jabs. You SUMMON a magical spear -then- commence stabbing with it. Stabbing requires skill and physicality. Summoning requires magical know-how. What is so confusing about this? It would change nothing but it would allow them to divorce skills like these from having to be either magic or stamina, and allow both morphs to be 'both' but do different things. At any regard there is no way a Hybrid build outdamages a full mage or stamina build with this design.

Additionally, the point I'm making regarding the mag/stam attributes increasing damage is that they also increase mitigation. What does Health do for you? Certainly it is not proportionate to the mitigation you can achieve with the likes of stamina and magicka skills, which is a problem with the design right now. Heavy armor and Health are really in a bad place right now. I've suggested many ideas to deal with this issue and make it interesting, this just happens to be another of them.

GrumpyDuckling · March 2016

The decision of where to spend attribute points should be tied only to resource management, not damage output. That's what will allow us to make hybrid builds. The current system of making skills more powerful based on your max stamina or magicka just entices people to load up their attributes on one resource. Why would I spend points in the other two attribute categories if it's going to hurt my damage?

Once ZOS realizes that tying attribute points to damage is a poor idea, maybe we can start having fun with unique hybrid builds, instead of dumping all of our points into one attribute.

ToRelax · March 2016

I like the idea to introduce skills or morphs dealing several types of damage, scaling from the respective attributes. However without diminishing returns/softcaps on most attributes, a hybrid would then still be missing competitive defensive options (could be implemented the same way of course - if there were powerful enough bi-scaling miss chance and damage reduction buffs, a hybrid could just use pure magicka/stamina heals, too). If diminishing returns/softcaps were to be (re-)introduced, wich I'd like to happen, such bi-scaling skills would have to be adjusted.

templesus · March 2016

A hybrid Templar with BoL Vigor and Rally? ....intriguing

dday3six · March 2016

dodgehopper_ESO wrote: »

dday3six wrote: »

It still maintain that hybrids are simply "I want the best of both worlds with no sacrifices".

I don't see how. Everyone uses stamina and magicka. The problem with the design of the system right now is that it has essentially two builds: Stamina or Magicka. Even Tanks perform better focusing one or the other, where a Tank should really be a lot more about HEALTH. I agree with what @AfkNinja said regarding that matter. My suggestion would hopefully create the same result and would also make more logical sense. When I look at a Templar doing jabs it is clearly a physical act, there is no two ways about it. If the skill had two components the end result would be similar but not equal. In other words if someone had more spell resistance than physical resistance, and I had a Jabs skill that was weighted more heavily toward physical damage, it would do noticeably more damage than someone who was built for spell damage.

This brings up another issue I have with the design of the game. I think it is pretty bad that the attributes themselves contribute to damage as well as sustainability. I would much rather see a system that forced players to make a choice between the two. It would be much easier for the developers to do this if they decoupled damage from the Magicka/Stamina attributes altogether, and that would really be a preferred option for me.

Design cannot be about semantic over-analyzing such as Templar jabs looks like a phyiscal action. The majority of skills in the game would have to be magic then because they would not be possible with magical assistance.

The reason I call hybrids out as blatant "I want it all" builds is because I see no way for them not being that. Take Sorc for example. Imagine a Sorc that is basically a stamina build but with Hardened Ward and more Magicka to cast utility like Streak and Boundless Storm. That's having your cake and eating it too. The best of both builds, and that's all I see hybrids amounting to. Right now even though not every builds is supported the best, a player has to choose stamina or magicka and play to the strengths and weaknesses of each. I find that far more balanced and varied than each class choosing the best skill regardless of stamina or magicka. Which will not lead to more builds being vaiable, rather there being one build per class, per role that uses the best skills.

ToRelax · March 2016

dday3six wrote: »

dodgehopper_ESO wrote: »

dday3six wrote: »

It still maintain that hybrids are simply "I want the best of both worlds with no sacrifices".

I don't see how. Everyone uses stamina and magicka. The problem with the design of the system right now is that it has essentially two builds: Stamina or Magicka. Even Tanks perform better focusing one or the other, where a Tank should really be a lot more about HEALTH. I agree with what @AfkNinja said regarding that matter. My suggestion would hopefully create the same result and would also make more logical sense. When I look at a Templar doing jabs it is clearly a physical act, there is no two ways about it. If the skill had two components the end result would be similar but not equal. In other words if someone had more spell resistance than physical resistance, and I had a Jabs skill that was weighted more heavily toward physical damage, it would do noticeably more damage than someone who was built for spell damage.

This brings up another issue I have with the design of the game. I think it is pretty bad that the attributes themselves contribute to damage as well as sustainability. I would much rather see a system that forced players to make a choice between the two. It would be much easier for the developers to do this if they decoupled damage from the Magicka/Stamina attributes altogether, and that would really be a preferred option for me.

Design cannot be about semantic over-analyzing such as Templar jabs looks like a phyiscal action. The majority of skills in the game would have to be magic then because they would not be possible with magical assistance.

The reason I call hybrids out as blatant "I want it all" builds is because I see no way for them not being that. Take Sorc for example. Imagine a Sorc that is basically a stamina build but with Hardened Ward and more Magicka to cast utility like Streak and Boundless Storm. That's having your cake and eating it too. The best of both builds, and that's all I see hybrids amounting to. Right now even though not every builds is supported the best, a player has to choose stamina or magicka and play to the strengths and weaknesses of each. I find that far more balanced and varied than each class choosing the best skill regardless of stamina or magicka. Which will not lead to more builds being vaiable, rather there being one build per class, per role that uses the best skills.

A hybrid would have less resources available for both magicka and stamina based actions. You do not get the full advantages of either, but some of both to compromise their weaknesses. The only problem right now is that it's simply not feasible to invest into differently scaling types of damage skills.

dodgehopper_ESO · March 2016

dday3six wrote: »

dodgehopper_ESO wrote: »

dday3six wrote: »

It still maintain that hybrids are simply "I want the best of both worlds with no sacrifices".

I don't see how. Everyone uses stamina and magicka. The problem with the design of the system right now is that it has essentially two builds: Stamina or Magicka. Even Tanks perform better focusing one or the other, where a Tank should really be a lot more about HEALTH. I agree with what @AfkNinja said regarding that matter. My suggestion would hopefully create the same result and would also make more logical sense. When I look at a Templar doing jabs it is clearly a physical act, there is no two ways about it. If the skill had two components the end result would be similar but not equal. In other words if someone had more spell resistance than physical resistance, and I had a Jabs skill that was weighted more heavily toward physical damage, it would do noticeably more damage than someone who was built for spell damage.

This brings up another issue I have with the design of the game. I think it is pretty bad that the attributes themselves contribute to damage as well as sustainability. I would much rather see a system that forced players to make a choice between the two. It would be much easier for the developers to do this if they decoupled damage from the Magicka/Stamina attributes altogether, and that would really be a preferred option for me.

Design cannot be about semantic over-analyzing such as Templar jabs looks like a phyiscal action. The majority of skills in the game would have to be magic then because they would not be possible with magical assistance.

The reason I call hybrids out as blatant "I want it all" builds is because I see no way for them not being that. Take Sorc for example. Imagine a Sorc that is basically a stamina build but with Hardened Ward and more Magicka to cast utility like Streak and Boundless Storm. That's having your cake and eating it too. The best of both builds, and that's all I see hybrids amounting to. Right now even though not every builds is supported the best, a player has to choose stamina or magicka and play to the strengths and weaknesses of each. I find that far more balanced and varied than each class choosing the best skill regardless of stamina or magicka. Which will not lead to more builds being vaiable, rather there being one build per class, per role that uses the best skills.

I may not be understanding what you are saying, but I'm pretty sure you're misunderstanding the nature of my suggestion based upon what you are saying. To begin I'm not suggesting an 'I want it all' build. People would be giving things up to build in a hybrid fashion, and in either case the suggestion for making certain skills draw from more than one resource is suggested for more than just hybrid purposes. I point it out because it also would benefit those builds and possibly bring them back and give them a specific reason to exist. Your point about a stamina sorcerer casting Hardened ward doesn't much make sense to me. Hardened ward is clearly a magic-only skill. Some things are clearly stamina actions (blocking, dodge rolling, ransack, etc). Some skills are clearly a mixture of the two (thus hybrid skills). You might think that its a bad suggestion and I can respect that, but I think you're imputing some kind of nefarious intent which just isn't there. I'm just brainstorming an idea that would hopefully kick up some more variety in what builds we can play. As someone stated earlier the game has become too much about pumping the slider up on magic or stamina of late, there needs to be more interesting design choices.

LadyNalcarya · March 2016

templesus wrote: »

A hybrid Templar with BoL Vigor and Rally? ....intriguing

Or sorcs with shields, spamming wb and proccing frags.

melianos · March 2016

dday3six wrote: »

It still maintain that hybrids are simply "I want the best of both worlds with no sacrifices".

Right now the game is (kinda) balanced for people going either full magicka or full stamina. So right now it looks like hybrids is wanting the best of both because the game is made so that you have to choose Magicka or Stamina.

Making hybrids viable would need to rebalance too many things, unfortunately I don't think it possible so soon after 1.6.
Hybrids were interesting at launch, when your defense et regeneration had soft and hard caps. Now ? I don't think so.

ScooberSteve · March 2016

There are hybrids its usually stamina build with magiks abilities that dont scale off of magika and spell damage

Acsvf · March 2016

ScooberSteve wrote: »

There are hybrids its usually stamina build with magiks abilities that dont scale off of magika and spell damage

I highly doubt that is what OP is referring to.

Luvtantius_Micocia · March 2016

Would it not be more simple to have weapon abilities with the option to morph it either into magicka or into a stamina using ability?

Aektann · March 2016

GrumpyDuckling wrote: »

The decision of where to spend attribute points should be tied only to resource management, not damage output. .

This ^
And simply add weapon damage and spell damage stats on weapons (Both stats on all weapons (daggers,swords,staves, etc) , so we can "play as we want").

RoamingRiverElk · March 2016

Magicka DKs need to be hybrids in order to try to survive, which is their problem. To some extent, this is also the case for templars. In the current meta that has been going on for a really long time already, magicka classes which rely on blocking and don't have mobility are suffering a lot - magicka templars and magicka DKs. And not only do they need to invest in blocking, they also need to put points into health because their defensive magicka based skills are not enough compared to magicka sorcs (hardened ward, bolt escape) and magicka nightblades (cloak, shadow image).

There are indeed hybrid builds already out there, but essentially they're just minmax one attribute builds which do not need to invest in max hp or the other 'damage' attribute. Stamina nightblades put the points in max stamina, but can still use shadow image, cloak and the magicka based 20% dodge chance which also gives a speed buff very nicely. Magicka sorcs can use shuffle quite easily and block and dodge roll when they need to, because they don't have to block often.

Magicka DK on the other hand? I need to invest into max hp AND max stamina. Trying to get the 20% dodge chance from shuffle is a real pain because it costs so much stamina while I need to block in order to mitigate melee damage due to having very poor damage shields, and because if I let my health go down to, say, 15k from my 25k hp (which means that I can heal, because you can't heal at full health, that healing goes to waste), I can get burst down if I don't block. My damage is worse than for other "pure" attribute classes because I had to invest into hp and stamina management a lot more.

Magicka sorcs can block whenever they want to, selectively, because they have such strong shields and mobility. They can dodge roll when they want to, because they don't need to block. They can use shuffle too. They only need to get two stamina regen bonuses to be able to do this, while they can still have all of their attributes in max magicka (aside from what they get from purple food).

Stamina DKs can also easily achieve very nice magicka regen while still having a ton of damage from max stamina and weapon dmg. That magicka regen enables them to use wings, igneous shield and fossilize a lot.

You say hybrid builds would be the best of both worlds? The best of both worlds builds are currently stamina nb, stamina dk, and to an extent, magicka sorc.

AfkNinja · March 2016

Softcaps would likely need to be re-implemented, some skills would still need to scale on magic to give a reason to go pure magic. Likewise some skills would need to scale with stamina (defensive skills) for the same reason. But if they took dmg scaling away from resource pools you'd now rely on Wep power and Spell power for dmg so no, you couldn't have the best of both worlds really. You'd still have to make compromises somewhere, lower spell power or lower wep power. So really you'd use one resource for your dmg and one for your defense which is what we do now. We'd just have more flexible options cause our dmg wouldn't be garbage anymore for not stacking 100% into 1 resource. I could actually spec HP and it wouldn't sacrifice my chances of winning a fight.

Also, having to shift between stam/magic skills and keeping track of both resource pools would be harder than keeping track of one, it would reward skillful play imo which sadly seems to keep getting nerfed in pvp. (Block nerf, dodge nerf, etc)

It would just be nice I think if picking stamina or magicka didn't immediately negate half the skills available to you, more options is always better imo.

dodgehopper_ESO · March 2016

ScooberSteve wrote: »

There are hybrids its usually stamina build with magiks abilities that dont scale off of magika and spell damage

Those are often called Tanks (which I have played a lot of).

GrimMauKin · March 2016

I've been playing a single character (Nightblade) since day one and have stubbornly stuck with him throughout all the changes (although there have had to be many respecs and rethinks to keep him going). I wanted to play a dual wield Nightblade (with bow skills) which needed stamina but I also wanted to use class skills which were originally all Magicka based (the vast majority still are). To be honest, I think that hybrid characters are perfectly viable in PvE, although probably less so in Trials where groups seem to want specific roles. Hybrid builds are compromised in PvP though where maximum damage seems the 'must have' approach.

I'd advocate skills scaling off of weapon or magic damage too but the current system could work if ZOS introduced a law of diminishing returns for scaling/damage (along the lines of the Overcharging mechanism that used to apply to Regen e.g. it became harder to increase the higher it got). A bit of imagination in MOB design would also help; I think we need some creatures that drain Stamina or Magicka instead of just health which could give hybrids a bit of a boost overall. People have also talked about blocking draining stamina for stamina based damage and magicka for magicka based damage and I'd be for this too.

ZOS could also expand the Alchemy system to perhaps allow weapon applied toxins that might affect Regen making all Stamina/Magicka based builds a bit more vulnerable and give builds who could fall back another resource if one were compromised/drained an edge overall.

ToRelax · March 2016

GrimMauKin wrote: »

I've been playing a single character (Nightblade) since day one and have stubbornly stuck with him throughout all the changes (although there have had to be many respecs and rethinks to keep him going). I wanted to play a dual wield Nightblade (with bow skills) which needed stamina but I also wanted to use class skills which were originally all Magicka based (the vast majority still are). To be honest, I think that hybrid characters are perfectly viable in PvE, although probably less so in Trials where groups seem to want specific roles. Hybrid builds are compromised in PvP though where maximum damage seems the 'must have' approach.

I'd advocate skills scaling off of weapon or magic damage too but the current system could work if ZOS introduced a law of diminishing returns for scaling/damage (along the lines of the Overcharging mechanism that used to apply to Regen e.g. it became harder to increase the higher it got). A bit of imagination in MOB design would also help; I think we need some creatures that drain Stamina or Magicka instead of just health which could give hybrids a bit of a boost overall. People have also talked about blocking draining stamina for stamina based damage and magicka for magicka based damage and I'd be for this too.

ZOS could also expand the Alchemy system to perhaps allow weapon applied toxins that might affect Regen making all Stamina/Magicka based builds a bit more vulnerable and give builds who could fall back another resource if one were compromised/drained an edge overall.

I am pretty sure hybrid builds are actually still better in PvP than in competitive PvE, excluding tanks. Exactly because a DD doesn't have to worry all that much about anything else than dealing damage, and a healer, although he might need better resource management, still only uses magicka. So in that sense, I would welcome bi-scaling skills to introduce hybrids into PvE. But then again, I'm an ignorant PvPer.

GrimMauKin · March 2016

It's just a shame that they worked really well early on but are far less viable now. I shall persevere though.

Marktoneth3 · March 2016

I once go for full health

I lost my ***

There's no place for my full health build

This is ***

and people always focus only stam/mag

Nerouyn · March 2016

This is one of those bizarre problems which highlight a failure to see the big picture. At the class level the game pretty much forces magic on everyone. So you'd think it would favour hybrids or at least cater to them. But it doesn't.

Hybridism presently fails on two fronts:

Most abilities scale with either magicka or stamina so beefing up one or the other tends to work better.
Light and medium armour passives further boost either magical or weapon damage in various ways. So again going one way or the other tends to work better.

Remove magicka and stamina scaling.

Remove armour passives which boost either magical or weapon damage. Heavy > medium > light for protection. Light > medium > heavy for cheaper ability cost.